The atmosphere Tuesday at Ralph McKenzie Field was a sharp contrast to the mood Sunday.

Downtrodden NIU baseball players trudged to clean up the field Sunday after a 15-6 loss to Ball State to end a weekend sweep.

Tuesday, players were joking with one another, smiling and after a 6-4 win against Illinois State, even enjoying their post-game cleanup of the diamond.

“I feel a lot better today,” Huskie s first baseman Brian Smith said. “It feels good to get a win because our heads were down, and we’ve got to keep them up. I think everyone just came out with a little more energy. We wanted to play today.”

After Sunday’s loss, NIU head coach Ed Mathey took his team into center field to address some issues with his players.

“We need to reinforce with these guys that we can be a good team when we play like it, but we can be a pretty bad team when we don’t,” the third-year coach said. “A lot of situations we’ve had this year have been our doing.”

The Huskies fell behind 4-0 after a two-error first inning and an ISU rally in the fourth. NIU countered by adding a run in its half of the inning, making the score 4-1.

Before the bottom of the fifth, senior Jeremy Busch decided to rally his teammates.

“I thought that would be a good point in the game, because we were right there,” the center fielder said. “We’d put a couple hits together, but nothing amounted from it, so I just told them that if we kept doing what we had been doing, we could turn it around.”

Busch backed up his words with a single to right field, advancing Kyle Cherney to scoring position with one out.

Both runners scored before Smith hit a two-run double to give NIU a 5-4 lead.

“I knew he was coming with the fastball,” said Smith, smiling. “He’d been real consistent on fastballs all day.”

Busch said he noticed a change in the team’s demeanor after the team’s deflating losses over the weekend.

The team had a day off Monday, but still, most of the players were at Ralph McKenzie Field practicing on their own.

“I think the guys realize that we have to do a little extra work to get better,” Busch said.

The Huskies didn’t commit any errors for the rest of the day and held ISU scoreless after the fourth inning.

Maybe Mathey’s speech had been taken to heart.

“I’d hope so,” Mathey said. “I don’t want to feel like I’m talking to the backstop out there.”

The Huskies won’t have long to celebrate the victory, as they left this morning for Charleston to face Eastern Illinois at 3:00 p.m.

“They’ve been struggling just like we have,” Smith said. “But if we catch the ball, we’ll start winning more games.”

EIU has beaten the Huskies in both meetings in the last two seasons, including a 10-7 loss last year.

“Eastern’s a tough challenge for us,” Mathey said. “They force a lot of action, so we’ll have to make plays.”